


inevitable

by ignitesthestars



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alcohol, F/M, Pining, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-24
Updated: 2016-08-24
Packaged: 2018-08-10 20:46:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7860511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ignitesthestars/pseuds/ignitesthestars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You don’t like me.”</p><p>Sirius is drunk. He holds his tumbler up to the light, watching the liquid flicker red and gold in the dying embers of the Common Room fireplace. Lily Evans stands just to the left of it, arms crossed over her chest, infamous eyes inscrutable.</p><p>He could stand to be drunker. The last of his glass burns down his throat, and he reaches for the bottle.</p><p>“What,” he says, enunciating each letter precisely, “would give you that idea?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	inevitable

“You don’t like me.”

Sirius is drunk. He holds his tumblr up to the light, watching the liquid flicker red and gold in the dying embers of the Common Room fireplace. Lily Evans stands just to the left of it, arms crossed over her chest, infamous eyes inscrutable.

He could stand to be drunker. The last of his glass burns down his throat, and he reaches for the bottle.

“What,” he says, enunciating each letter precisely, “would give you that idea?”

There are snoring bodies all around them, victims of the first post-Quidditch celebration of the season. Gryffindor had kicked Slytherin arse in an historical fashion (the final score was, frankly, a little too embarrassing for even the victors to brag about), Sirius had made a lot of money betting on his boy Prongs (sorry, Wormtail), and Lily Evans had kissed him for the first time.

Him being James Potter. Not Sirius. Obviously.

He tips back the last of his drink as she watches him, holding her gaze. Fucking reams of parchment have been filled with odes to Lily Evans’ green eyes and Sirius - Sirius is not about to add to them. He reaches for the bottle of Firewhiskey, only to have her fingers close over the neck, brushing his.

They’re warm. Or maybe that’s just him.

“You passed celebration half a bottle ago,” she says, tugging it away from him. He lets her take it, hand falling back to the arm of his chair, abruptly nerveless. “You’re well on your way onto maudlin.”

“Didn’t you spend six years lecturing us about about the dangers of egotism?”

“You’re saying this–” She draws a little circle in the air, indicating all of his…him. “–has nothing to do with me.”

“Evans, you can’t really be trying to take credit for my entire body.”

She’s relieved him of his booze, so he tosses an ice cube into his mouth and crunches it obnoxiously, grinning around the painful cold that creeps over his tongue. _Go away. Go away. Go. Away._

He expects her to huff. Roll her eyes, throw a final cutting remark, swan off to greener pastures.

He should have known better. There’s not a person in the tower who rivals Lily Evans for stubborn when she puts her mind to it, and this is the Gryffindor tower. Its stones are seeped in stubborn.

She eyes him again, takes a pull directly from the neck of the bottle as she sits down opposite him. Despise the whole disaffected youth thing he’s got going, he feels his eyebrows raise.

“This is going to be uncomfortable on all of us if we don’t get it sorted, so. I’m not going to steal your best friend from you. I’m not a threat to your man-friendship. Christ, for all we know, he might finally shut up about me.”

Her tone might be exasperated, but there’s a quirk to her mouth that speaks of an inevitable fondness. There’s a part of Sirius that has been waiting to see that look for the past six and more years. For this moment, when his best friend has started to belong to someone else and he can’t even be mad about it, because they’re perfect for each other.

That little half-smile knows, even if Evans hasn’t figured it out yet. Sirius crunches another ice cube.

“Prongs,” he points out, “is not going to stop talking you with the breathless worship of a groupie until the day he dies, and you know it. If I had to hazard a guess, I’d say it’s part of the attraction.”

He’s needling her and they both know it _. Go away go away go away._ But she only takes a another pull from the whiskey, settling into her chair. The dying fire limns the column of her throat as she swallows. The last of his ice melts on his tongue.

“You really want me to start talking about what the attraction is, Sirius?”

“Never took you for an exhibitionist.”

“You never took me for much, did you?”

His face twitches a denial, sudden, out of his control. He can’t put his finger on how, just that his gut shrieks _bullshit_ and the booze lifts all gates on the emotion as it rockets up his throat and rearranges his features.

He can see the exact moment she figures it out. When exasperation turns to confusion turns to understanding. Sirius grips the arms of his chair and levers himself to his feet; the alcohol hits him in a wave of warmth and vertigo, and by the time it passes she’s there, bright green eyes boring into him.

“You never said.” Her fingers are on his forearm, and he thinks he’d rather stick it in the fireplace.

He doesn’t say anything. A sardonic twist to his mouth speaks instead, the _obviously_ loud as a scream between them. James Potter had loved her from the moment he saw her. It wouldn’t have mattered if Evans had never kissed him in the Gryffindor changing rooms, if she’d never looked his way to do anything other than scowl. James loved her, and so Sirius could not.

Her fingers dig in, just for a moment. “He doesn’t own me. None of you own me.”

There is a row of idiots all lining themselves up to be knocked down by her, and yes, it has occurred to Sirius already that none of them really asked if she was in the mood for bowling. He wonders if it gnaws at her, to have ended up here with James despite her better judgment.

It doesn’t gnaw at him.

“You wouldn’t have looked at me twice.” His own voice is alien to him, still tangled up in that smirk but soft, now.

A pause. So slight, it’s impossible to tell if it’s a hesitation. “ _That_ wasn’t your decision to make.”

“No,” he agrees. “What you do with your feelings is up to you. Just like it’s up to me what I do with mine.”

And he tugs his arm away from her, flicking a lazy salute. His stomach is roiling. He must have had some bad Celebratory Chicken.

“Keep the bottle,” he adds, as he heads for the boys’ staircase. “I’ve got plenty more  where that come from.”

She doesn’t say anything, a miracle in and of itself. But he feels those eyes on his back, long after he’s dragged himself into bed.


End file.
